Five Things That Ought To Happen in 2010 But Probably Won't

The car of Juan Pablo Montoya is pushed through the garage during a rainy qualifying session at Talladega. (The Birmingham News -- Frank Couch)This is my column at Insider Racing News:

1. Dale Earnhardt Jr. should announce that he has signed a deal to drive in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for the new Kyle Busch Motorsports team for the same money that Busch got driving last year for Billy Ballew -- nothing. Why? To rediscover the joy of racing for the sake of racing, not because NASCAR’s TV ratings depend on it or because he feels the weight of the sport on his shoulders.

Even better yet, he could drive a late model for Busch on a Sprint Cup off week. Imagine the buzz that would deliver to some local short track.

Why for Busch? Well, there are things that Busch could learn from Earnhardt -- such as grace under pressure -- but there are things Junior could rediscover by driving for Rowdy -- such as an intense desire to win and just plain having fun.

2. The Top 35 rule should be abandoned and NASCAR should adopt knockout qualifying along the lines of Formula One. Yes, there is actually something from F1 that NASCAR should copy.

F1’s three rounds of knockout qualifying -- in which the fastest cars advance to rounds 2 and 3 -- are often more exciting and competitive than the races themselves. NASCAR qualifying, by comparison is a snoozefest. It is often more exciting to watch paint dry than to wait to see which of the bottom feeders has to go home.

Yes, this means that a popular driver might go home. And it means teams will have to work more on qualifying and their equipment might get torn up. That’s how it goes in sports. Sometimes bad things happen to the good teams.

The PGA doesn’t have a special rule to make sure that Tiger Woods doesn’t miss the cut. NASCAR doesn’t need one for its stars either.

And NASCAR might end up discovering that fans actually make a point of tuning in to watch qualifying each week.

3. International Speedway Corp. needs to announce that the second race it has promised for Kansas Speedway will come from Fontana -- not from Martinsville.

Of course, that won’t happen because Fontana is in the second largest TV market in the country. The ratings for the Fontana race last February were higher than nearly every other race except Daytona -- and that has nothing to do with the quality of the race or the number of empty seats in the grandstands.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Martinsville is a better race, but it’s in the middle of nowhere, which is a very bad place to be. It’s extinction is as inevitable as the dinosaur that looked up at the sky to see an asteroid streaking through the atmosphere.

And that’s a shame because while keeping Fontana looks like the good move on paper, another blow to yet another beloved NASCAR track will further alienate a critical fan base that NASCAR cannot afford to further alienate.

4. The 10th year of the 21st century is as good a time as any for the first victory by a female driver in a NASCAR or ARCA national stock car series. Erin Crocker came the closest recently when she finished second in an ARCA race in 2005.

This year is probably the best chance since then for a woman to win -- and Danica Patrick isn’t even the best hope for that happening.

Don’t be surprised if the first woman to win is Alli Owens. She’ll be in her third year in ARCA but she’ll be driving for top-flight Venturini Motorsports. The difference that better equipment makes was apparent at the ARCA test at Daytona this month -- where 10 women participated -- when Owens and her Venturini teammates were consistently the fastest cars on the track.

Another driver who could break through to Victory Lane is Johanna Long of Pensacola. She’ll be driving the D’Hondt Motorsports ARCA ride that Owens vacated. Long is just 17 and has a lot to learn, but she tore up the competition last season at Five Flags Speedway. She’s a driver worth keeping an eye on in the future.

5. NASCAR needs to quit messing around with the Bud Shootout.

It used to be pretty simple who got to race in the Shootout. If you won a pole the previous year, you were in. If you were a past winner, you were in.

Then Budweiser decided they didn’t want to sponsor the pole awards any more but still wanted the Shootout. Coors picked up sponsorship of the pole awards and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Budweiser would rather sell warm beer than sponsor a race featuring all the Coors Light Pole Award winners.

So last year we got a convoluted formula that based eligibility on who drove for which manufacturer. But that didn’t last long with teams switching manufacturers in the offseason and Dodge downsizing to just Penske.

And now we have a new convoluted formula.

Let’s quit having the tail wag the dog. Make sponsorship of the Shootout and the pole award a package deal and go back to a race among pole winners.